Saturday Clean up . . .
Another great day & an Island tick! We visited the Island of Mousa in the morning & helped count seals & pups - a real priviledge! During the visit we spotted a large flock of Common Eider & the elusive King Eider amongst them. Later in the afternoon after lunch in The Peerie Cafe in Lerwick (my favourite lunching spot!), we looked for the Ring-neckd Duck again. Whilst scanning the Tingwall Loch & Tufted Duck flocks a bird flew in to join them - at last we had caught up with another Shetland tick.

Winning White . . .
An added bonus last night before we left Fair Isle, was finding out that my White's Thrush image below is the SURFBIRDS RARE BIRD PHOTO OF THE MONTH - OCTOBER 2008.
As seen in Birdwatching Magazine!

Mainland Magic . . .

After a suprisingly smooth flight from Fair Isle back to mainland Shetland, we went on a twitching spree! First was Sandgarth for a very active Coal Tit which was busy removing peanuts from a bird table & stashing them in nearby vegetation before returning for more. This was our first Coal Tit for Shetland - a rare bird here! We then drove to Kirkabister where, after some searching & false alarms (Great Northern Divers), we located the White-billed Diver which has returned to winter here again & was a British tick for me. Our next stop was a very good fish & chip shop in Lerwick, followed by a visit to Clickimin Loch where we dipped the Ring-necked Duck (& the one at Tingwall Loch). However we found 8 Waxwings in Lerwick, in beautiful late afternoon light, gorging themselves on ripe rosehip fruits. Our last twitch of the day was to Fladdabister for another rare Shetland bird, a Blue Tit! - which showed well & again added another good bird to our Shetland lists!

Hornemann's Arctic Redpoll - Yell

Arrived at Sumburgh on Saturday afternoon for the start of our October birding trip. We were met with a strong northerly gale, driving rain and later that evening snow and blizzards in Lerwick! Visited 'Yell' on Sunday for the very smart Hornemann's Arctic Redpoll which was feeding in a field near the school at Cullivoe.